My first goal in the implementation of ISTE standards is to “facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity” (the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 1997-2010). One of the focus areas that I have that the ISTE put in this standard is “exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems” (ISTE, 1997-2010). One of the first actions that I took was to just take an afternoon or two and explore different resources available to me for my world history class and ask my colleagues what they used and sites that they found were interesting. As there is only two other world history teachers in our district, the amount of information I was given from them really was not too informative as far as finding online resources. I did manage to find several on my own that I have been using. I have especially been focusing on using more WebQuest-type learning that requires students to facilitate their own learning. Two that I have used thus far were on World War I (http://schools.4j.lane.edu/churchill/library/classes/WWIQuest/WWIProcess.html) and the Russian Revolution (http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=28026).
I have learned that through problem-based learning that perhaps I could do more of an interdisciplinary project or activity that might allow my students to work collaboratively with what they are also learning in English class. Our at-risk students are on a team that the English, Science, Math, and Social Studies (me) work together. As the English class reads Animal Farm, I was thinking that using a collaborative project would be a great idea since Dr. Ertmer (2009) mentioned that some of the best problem-based activities are interdisciplinary.
My questions have come more from my second goal that I had for integrating 21st century technology. My second goal in my GAME plan was to create a collaborative learning environment to promote cultural understanding and digital citizenship. As I have created the collaborative wikispace with a classroom in Hungary (www.hungary-us-history.wikispaces.com), I have been moving along with this goal but we have had to adjust our schedule for completing different sections of the wikispace. My biggest question regarding this wikispace and collaborative project is how I am going to assess it. I moved pretty fast in setting up the wikispace and never really sat down to decide how to grade and evaluate what my students are doing. I also am wondering if my students are learning anything from the collaboration as some of it tends to be a review for my students. This has really been a collaborative project that I feel I am learning as I go and will probably need to reevaluate later.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Program 8. Spotlight on technology: Problem-based learning, part I. [Educational video]. Baltimore: Author.
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Casey,
ReplyDeleteAs the teacher of the English component of my school's STEM program, we are encouraged to teach across the curriculums. Last year, the four core teachers for this STEM class had a common prep in which we were supposed to work together planning lessons. It seemed as though the Math and Science teachers did a lot of collaborating and the History and English teacher(me) did a lot of collaborating. Animal Farm was actually the first project that we worked on together. I am not a history buff by any means, so it was helpful to have the history teacher teach my students what exactly Animal Farm was an analogy for history-wise. Kids got so much more out of this novel this time around than they have in the past without the proper background knowledge to make those key connections between the characters in the book and key political figures in our history. I think this would be a great challenge and well worth your efforts!
~Jennifer
Casey,
ReplyDeleteI have been searching for more WebQuest type sites for my students as well. Were these sites that you were already familiar with or did you recently finds these links? What search engines or terms helped you get there?
Thanks! Robyn
Robyn,
ReplyDeleteI had never used these WebQuests before - I simply searched. I started with the site from San Diego State University (http://webquest.org/index.php) as my initial starting point and then simply used a Google search from there. As I said, many needed to be adapted to fit my classroom but I've found some really great ideas.
Casey
Casey,
ReplyDeleteI think that it is great that you organized the collaborative wiki with the classroom from Hungary. It is difficult to foresee what challenges you may face until you actually try it. I am sure after much reflection you will determine what areas may need to be tweaked to make it an even greater success for another group of students.
Erika